Jared Bernstein on WPA Style Programs

Interesting proposal for Professor Paul Krugman — or maybe not — coming from former Biden economic adviser Jared Bernstein. Bernstein takes issue with the fact that Professor Krugman is still calling for WPA style programs, when according to Bernstein — that ship has long since left the dock.

A better article to write would have been that, Obama’s a waffler and he’s spineless IMO. And I say that because it’s the president’s job to set an agenda, and use the bully pulpit. And I think that when you have fervent right-wingers with tunnel vision for an extreme right-wing agenda in the Congress, that those voices tend to get amplified, in a climate with a weak and ineffectual (and irresolute) commander-in-chief. And with one who makes tepid proposals (if any at all) and takes time out to sign his excessively mild, feeble legislation — when he can absolutely pull himself away from — jetsetting around the world.

So WPA style programs — then or now — I think are virtually entirely academic, when we are talking about this sort of visionless, “pragmatic” conductor “leading” our path.